Do you ever wish the combat was more realistic in Civ?

Am I the only player that finds it annoying that melee units like swordsmen when getting attacked by fighters and bombers can still damage the aircraft in defense. Is there any mods to make it so that only anti air, destroyers and other fighters can only touch aircraft. Also I think cities shouldn't be able to defend against aircraft until that civilization reaches the modern age. I think it is stupid that a city below the modern age can at least damage the aircraft. I also think that in order to damage armored vehicle you should need a certain promotion for infantry units, and without those promotions that only anti-tank units, artillery, naval units, bombers, and jet fighter (not anything below jet fighters) should be able to damage armored vehicles. I find it stupid that infantry units can blow up a tank be shooting at it. I think if they should get rid of the bazooka unit and have that as a promotion for modern age infantry for fighting armored vehicles and there should be a sabotage tank promotion where they stealthy try to destroy that tank but it there is percent chance of it succeeding or failing Also how do you feel about the fact that air units can touched by melee units or that infantry can damage tanks?
Also are there any mods for this.

I always imagine that if there are "swordsman" running around in an era with planes and tanks and what not that they really represent poorly armed guerrillas with no arms provided by their military, but probably sporting hunting rifles or things like that.

What really bothers me is mobility in the modern era. It takes more than a decade to get an army around the world to engage the enemy. At the very least, you should be able to use allies' airports to lift in units.

Now, the exception is those beautiful Xcom units. Dear lord, do I love those things.

Well I sometimes wish that a single hex = bigger battlefield for more involved combat. Like how you move around a icon on total war maps until two icon makes contact then it's battle time.

The best explanation for swordsmen damaging aircraft is that the aircraft are actually damaging themselves. Airplanes getting destroyed in the landing/taking off process, or by a pilot crashing or the plane malfunctioning, are not at all uncommon. Its actually the only reason the US lost a plane in Libya. During WW2, planes got destroyed outside of combat all the time - during the Doolittle raid, all 16 US planes were destroyed or lost in the process.

So a 10% loss on each bombing raid in which the bombers aren't attacked is actually pretty reasonable and historically accurate (and useful for balancing reasons in Civ!). But Civ does require you to think in the abstract quite a bit, I'll give you that!

As for infantry destroying armored units: "Landships", which are basically Civ's term for WW1 tanks, were easily destroyed by infantry grenades: toss one in the right spot and the driver died instantly. Later, better tanks (even today) are vulnerable to bazookas, and it's quite conceivable that there are a few of those in a regular infantry batallion, even if Civ has a seperate, all-bazooka unit that's more effective against armored units.

Overall though, I will say Civ stretches the boundaries of what's really realistic, especially when you think about these things literally (how does my infantry have less range than his archer? Where am I parking a frigate in this city? Etc.)

I dream of a game like civ and HOI 3 combined lol. I like the random generation of games in Civ and the complexity of combat and the tech tree in HOI. Maybe the Great General customization from Total War too.

"Realistic" doesn't mean properly balanced.

You can find in any strategy game units destroying buildings or castles with swords (and sometimes even hands) and guns. Otherwise it would be "OMG WHZ CANZ I DO ZIS!?"

and in CiV game, air units are already OP. When they show up, most of the ground units are just cannon fodder and cities are fairly easy to reduce to 1hp (critical red).

as for the infantry vs tanks... well use little imagination. Infantry does have grenades, right? They don't do as much damage as direct bazooka rocket, but it still does some.

GGitchell said:

Am I the only player that finds it annoying that melee units like swordsmen when getting attacked by fighters and bombers can still damage the aircraft in defense. Is there any mods to make it so that only anti air, destroyers and other fighters can only touch aircraft. Also I think cities shouldn't be able to defend against aircraft until that civilization reaches the modern age. I think it is stupid that a city below the modern age can at least damage the aircraft. I also think that in order to damage armored vehicle you should need a certain promotion for infantry units, and without those promotions that only anti-tank units, artillery, naval units, bombers, and jet fighter (not anything below jet fighters) should be able to damage armored vehicles. I find it stupid that infantry units can blow up a tank be shooting at it. I think if they should get rid of the bazooka unit and have that as a promotion for modern age infantry for fighting armored vehicles and there should be a sabotage tank promotion where they stealthy try to destroy that tank but it there is percent chance of it succeeding or failing Also how do you feel about the fact that air units can touched by melee units or that infantry can damage tanks?
Also are there any mods for this.

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It is silly but I tend to interpret the damage as running low on fuel or something like it in those situations. Then again, it is also funny...seeing homing arrows and homing flaming slingshots hitting a plane.

To be serious, however, they should fix the combat delays that affect some units, especially subs and carriers.

Some upgraded units seem invincible against less obsolete ones. For example, sometimes when one attacks a rifleman with a crossbowman or an infantry, there is very little damage done. Infantries seem almost unstoppable against artillery. There was once a pracinha in a jungle and a rival artillery seiged and only did -9 damage. Helicopters used to be more common without the need for aluminum, but now, aluminum becomes much more important since helicopters, rocket artillery and any stealth all need aluminum.

Have you seen what Shock III National Epic Samurai can do on open ground? Scary.
Tried it in the Japan game I am currently playing, finished Honor and build Statue of Zeus. They quickly killed Rome's superior army (about two times bigger then mine) since they had Shock 3 promotion and bonus from Discipline, NE and Great General. That way they were easily on strength of Rifles around Medieval\Renaissance era.

Oh and I also got Statue of Zeus. Bad luck for Rome and Songhai.

Realism in games is always simulated realism. Civ V is just a bit more abstract than others. Civ V, IMO, is about the big picture, so combat needs to be a bit abstracted.

If you suddenly went from "civ" mode to strategic mode in which you plan out high level battle details then to some sort of battle mode to move troops around then to a tactical mode where you moved stuff XCOM style the games would take forever, and odds are very low the execution would be good due to the difficulties involved. At some point a dividing line needs to be made.

Even if they implemented 5 modes, from very high level civ planning, down to mano-y-mano mode ( think Mortal Combat or something,) it's still abstraction of realism. If you want realism, join up, and ask for duty in the Middle East.

In spite of the opinion that war really sucks, it's a fact of life, and I am interested in strategy and tactics. But, I think too much detail would distract from the Civ genre. It's really another game then. There's still plenty of strategy in terms of unit placement, and troop movements due to 1 UPT.